By Thomas O'Neal
Raider Shakedown Reporter
NASHVILLE,
Tenn. – A short documentary film screened at the Nashville Film Festival on
April 22 startled filmmakers by revealing the financial hardships of special
effects companies.
Christina
Lee Storm, the former manager of digital production at Hollywood visual effects
company Rhythm & Hues, shared insights about her film, "Life After
Pi", during an interview in Nashville on April 24. Storm was working for
Rhythm & Hues when it declared bankruptcy because of the inability to meet
overhead and pay its employees.
“I
was working at Rhythm & Hues throughout the whole bankruptcy process,” she
said, adding that the bankruptcy occurred after the company completed its work
on the Academy Award-winning film, "Life of Pi". “I was asked to help
document the bankruptcy by filming the whole thing”.
 |
| Christina Lee Storm |
Storm
interviewed many people for the film, including company founder John Hughes.
Hughes was hit the hardest, saying he wished he could have done "something
different to save this company and not hurt so many people.”
When
asked how she felt about the relationship between visual effects, or VFX, and
the big studios, Storm said that the big studios are looking at films mainly as
a way to make money. Filmmakers often make changes at the last minute, forcing
their visual effects teams to extend work on an uncompensated basis. To save
money and avoid taxes, the studios are giving more work to special effects
companies in Canada and other countries. This is forcing some American visual
effects companies to close their doors.
 |
| John Hughes |
There
are film studios that have a large leverage in controlling the price of
filmmaking. 20th Century Fox,
Sony and Disney are some of the biggest studios. "Studios have all the control of the economics of films,"
she added. "They chase down the best tax subsidies to make the most from
the smallest amount of money possible.”
The
VFX community, which is suffering, is fighting for change. Special effects
professionals want the studios to stop farming out film projects to overseas
VFX companies. They also are concerned about being away from family members for
months at a time.
The
community really got stirred up when "Life Of Pi" Special Effects
Supervisor Bill Westenhofer was cut off mid-speech at the Oscars. That event
helped fuel what is called the Oscars March. The march was a way for VFX
professionals to protest the way they are being treated and to convince the
studios to stop outsourcing their jobs overseas.
The
overarching thing about this is that the VFX community needs to keep standing up
for change or, as Storm said, “The VFX field could go extinct.”
To
find out more about this issue and to watch the short film, visit www.youtube.com/HollyWoodEndingMovie
and click on “Life After Pi (Official).”
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